University degrees irrelevant

I basically agree with your general point although I'm not sure it's a matter of luck.

 

Depends on your definition of luck:

* Luck in genetics (you're smart enough to succeed without the degree)
* Luck in opportunity (you got the "break" that some people can't get without a degree)

I got some of both, plus I was "lucky" enough to break into tech at a time when people didn't think it bizarre to hire a kid still in high school to program their business software.

Obviously there is also work ethic involved, too, but I discount that. A degree won't save you from a bad work ethic...even if you DO manage to graduate.

I actually find the whole article funny. Here I am with a successful 30 year tech career with no degree, now pursuing my degree because the lack is holding me back from some things I want to do.

 

To me, luck means randomness. Give another person with a GED "a break" and they're not going to parlay that into a Fortune 10 VP position. Lots of people, given that break would wind up dismissed because they don't have the intelligence and the drive to succeed. Alternately, that person you mentioned, not getting that break, would have succeeded in some other fashion. None of that is random.

I had a coach once who used to say, "You make your own luck." He meat that if good things happen to you it's because you put yourself in a position for them to happen and you look for them to happen and you take advantage when they happen. None of that is random.

 

Role Reversal
For garden-variety middle class and lower class people: Economic opportunities associated with two-year technical degrees will grow over the next 30 years, while the perceived economic opportunities associated with four-year liberal arts degrees will diminish.

 

Who the hell cares what employers want! We educate people because we need good citizens. Is being a a good employee part of that? Yes. But only a part and perhaps even a minor part.

One could make a cogent argument that the reason 30% of people think Trump would make a good president is precisely because education has been all about employers and has totally failed to educate people for democratic participation.

 

Given the multitude of discussions around degrees and hiring found on this board, I'd say may care what employers want.

 

"....many...."

 

To me, degree is for knowledge, as well as training you to have the ability to learn new things at that level, say master level. This, to me, is wat we should aim to get out from our degree programmes. In my country, I know there will always be some black sheeps that will outsource all their assignments n projects to freelancer n be a free rider, then they should ask themselves wat they have get out from the programme.

 

A degree?

In his books, John often cited an informal survey he once took asking people why they were in school; to get a degree, an education, or both.

If, at the end of your degree program, you were forced to take only one thing with you, your learning or your degree, which would it be?

 

I thing degrees are important, but also agree to employers wanting work experience.
To the young people, I'm not saying to forget college. But taking on $80,000 to $100,000 plus of college debt, it a Lot of money.
I know a lot of people who have Bachelor's degrees that are unemployed or who work in jobs that don't pay anything near what they thought.
To the older folks like me who have had to work all their lives to support a family and at a job that works 7 days a week 10 to 12 hours a day, this leaves little time for college.
Raising a family takes a lot of money and also leaves little money for school. You have a mortgage and other payments, and you sure don't want to take on $50-$80 thousand more debt to a online school or community college to get your bachelor's. So what to do? Something is broke in this country when people of average to a little above middle road in their GPA and couldn't get a scholarship, make a little to much money to get grants and sure don't what to take on all the debt of college to roll the dice and hope you get a good paying job and are left with the only choice of getting a job. Other countries offer free education, heck our prison system offers college courses to prisoners. A hard working average guy has little of know choice but to work. This is just my 2 cents.....